


Don't you know history repeats itself?

by Codango



Category: Gintama
Genre: Angst, F/M, Flirting, Multiple Pairings, Rivalry, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-06
Updated: 2014-10-06
Packaged: 2018-02-20 02:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2411990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Codango/pseuds/Codango
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just look at them. Hijikata Toshi on the left and Sakata Gintoki on the right. Otose knew those faces from another life, another world.<br/>And the little blonde between them. Trying to ignore the tension she creates. Trying to pretend the friends aren’t trying to pretend nothing has changed between them.<br/>Otose can picture Tsukuyo as a brunette. With an unscarred face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't you know history repeats itself?

**Author's Note:**

> I was struck by the similarity of Hijikata to Otose's husband and Gintoki to Jirochou thanks to Ep212 (and a particular scene I screencapped here: http://codango.tumblr.com/post/99291208999/basing-a-bit-of-fanfic-off-of-this-screencap-from). It was easy to imagine the two young men sitting across Otose's bar with her daydreaming about the past. And I threw Tsukuyo into the mix because can't you picture Hijikata having a thing for a tough broad with social issues?

History repeats itself.

Everyone knows that.

Just look at them. Hijikata Toshi on the left and Sakata Gintoki on the right. She knew those faces from another life, another world.

And the little blonde between them. Trying to ignore the tension she creates. Trying to pretend the friends aren’t trying to pretend nothing has changed between them.

She can picture Tsukuyo as a brunette. With an unscarred face.

The men look at her with closed-lip smiles they don’t offer anyone else. Smiles that are sort of wrenched from them. _Damn sexy,_ those smiles say. _You’re amazing._ And _I want you._ And _You could do anything and have anyone, but_ I _want you and I don’t want to._

And even though the men are friends… the smiles are secrets that they’d rather not show to the other man’s face. Hell, they’d rather she didn’t even see them. But there you are. Wrenched.

But the woman’s not as oblivious as they’d like. She sees. And she knows.

Otose wipes down her bar and promises herself she’ll say a prayer for Tsukuyo tonight.

* * *

She calls it her “commute.” Even though she lives in a tiny bedroom behind her bar, Otose takes a walk in the moonlight after her last customer leaves. Just a couple blocks. She wouldn’t recommend such a stroll in Kabukichou to just anyone, but Otose has… a certain trust that anyone bothering her would quickly regret it.

She watches her cigarette smoke curl around the moon. It’s a nasty habit she picked up from her late husband. Only after he’d passed though. And she never could bear to use a pipe like he had.

She recognizes the relationship between Hijikata, the Shinsengumi Vice Chief, and Gintoki, her odd-jobs tenant and personal watchdog, for what it is. A couple of noble-hearted hot heads, trying their damnedest to take care of a town they loved but professed to hate. Two men who see in each other a contemporary/rival that each could respect. Two boys who hate it when the other doesn’t play the game the right way. Two friends who love each other but would kill anyone who breathed a word of it.

Otose rounds the block. _And now. Two friends who’ve fallen for the same woman._ She imagines the story won’t turn out exactly the same as it did in the past: For one thing, she thinks with a smile, neither of these youngsters have the guts to tell Tsukuyo their hearts.

She leans her head back to stare at the moon. _Tatsu did._ Oh he had the guts. They had only been teenagers, but he’d told her exactly what was in his heart the moment he knew himself. Honest to a fault. It probably never occurred to him to keep it a secret.

Jirochou, on the other hand… Otose takes a long pull on the cigarette. A much cagier man, distrustful all through their childhood together, and that only got worse as he’d aged.

She frowns, but there are no tears anymore. The memories are old. Jirochou had waited until they were both married to someone else before he found the courage, one horrible drunken night, to tell her what she’d long suspected. _“I’m hopeless. Loving someone who’s loved by someone I love.”_

But… Otose resumes her moonlit amble. Perhaps the silence of today’s young men will be Tsukuyo’s saving grace, poor woman. And she goes back to her sparse room to say a prayer for all three. _Those simple idiots._

* * *

Tsukuyo, alone in her bed deep in Yoshiwara, is having a less peaceful night. She’d love a smoke, but Hinowa has strict rules about smoking in bed. Strict as in, _you get caught, you get exiled._ Last year’s fire had been horrifying.

Instead, the blonde captain of Yoshiwara’s guard tosses and turns on her futon. She’d met Hijikata at Otose-san’s bar — he’d wanted to thank her for a tip she’d given him on smugglers who spent their cash in Yoshiwara — and the evening had been… surprising.

“Augh.” She throws off the covers and kneels by her open window. Gintoki had joined them after a few drinks. She’d been sandwiched between the two men, and while not an altogether unpleasant situation — she blushes, remembering strong thighs on either side — the tension was beyond her skill to diffuse.

Hijikata would refill her sake, Gintoki would lay a hand on her shoulder as he told a joke. Hijikata would compliment her hair, Gintoki would suggest that Hijikata couldn’t know what nice hair looked like, being around the Shinsengumi all the time.

 _Sigh._ Tsukuyo’s pretty sure Otose-san would disapprove of kunai being thrown about in her bar.

* * *

Gintoki frowns into this week’s volume of _JUMP._ He’s not reading it, not anymore, because he can’t, because _it’s all that damn Hijikata’s fault._ He hadn’t meant to get involved, he’d only wanted a drink, for crying out loud.

He’d heard Hijikata’s low voice before Gintoki had even gone past the bar’s curtain. For a split second, he’d smirked, anticipating the barbs they would throw at each other the drunker they got.

And then Gintoki had seen her. Tsukuyo was sitting _quite_ close to the Vice Chief, puffing away on that pipe of hers. Not looking at Hijikata but smiling at something he’d said.

And Hijikata. Gintoki slaps the thick volume closed and throws it on the floor. It’s a pouty move, but _he’s pouting dammit_. Hijikata couldn’t keep his eyes off her, for crying out loud. The Shinsengumi Vice Chief looked like he was stalking prey.

Gintoki stands and paces his small living room. _Probably thought he was being smooth as hell._

It doesn’t help his mood when he reflects that some of Hijikata’s lines had been rather slick. Tsukuyo had blushed at the compliment about her hair, and Gintoki had thrown back a mouthful of sake that was a little too large.

Gintoki stops pacing and folds his arms in his yukata. The obvious thing to do would be to back away. If bushido would have said anything on the topic, it no doubt would be against cock blocking a friend.

He lets out a slow breath through his nose. Except he’d noticed her hair too. It had been in a new twist, without the usual miniature kunai and topknot.

The thought that maybe… maybe she’d tried something different just to meet Hijikata for a drink makes his stomach drop. And he wishes to hell he had any reason to think it had been for him.

* * *

The blade gleams in the moonlight, but Hijikata is willing to polish his katana all night if he has to. He doubts he could sleep anyway.

It’s not like he had any real right to ask her out for a drink. The pretense had been thin — a reward for a tip about smugglers? The Shinsengumi Vice Chief snorts. Unnecessary. Unprofessional.

But she had come. He’d carefully suggested Otose-san’s bar, figuring if Tsukuyo would agree to meet him anywhere outside Yoshiwara, it’d be there. He feels heat come to his face. He hadn’t heard her come in. When she’d settled next to him at the bar, he’d nearly swallowed his cigarette.

Hijikata starts buffing the leather handle.

She’d barely looked at him all night, but she’d definitely smiled at his jokes. Her color had gotten higher the more she drank, and she grew more frank. They’d talked about the differences in their patrol work. He’d blushed at a lot of her stories, but — he inhales deeply — she was even more incredible than he’d thought when he’d first met her.

He frowns. Of course he’d met her through Gintoki. And of course Hijikata had noticed instantly the way the samurai looked at her. Gintoki had always been… more comfortable around women than he was, but when he looked at Tsukuyo... happy confusion, that's the most accurate way Hijikata can think to describe his friend's expression.

Hijikata leans his head back against a support beam of the Shinsengumi barracks. He’d seen her fight once, and that had been it. The power, the intelligence, the strength, the grace. And then when she wasn’t fighting, she changed into a being as socially awkward as he was. She was intoxicating.

Tsukuyo.

_Why do you have to be loved by someone I love?_

 

**Author's Note:**

> [@codango](http://codango.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr
> 
> [Marcella Christie](http://marcellachristie.com/) for my alter ego


End file.
